Dawn
by Halfpenny
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, the survivors are left to pick up the pieces. Rated for language. *OLD, saved for posterity*


_We danced in graveyards with vampires till dawn_

_We laughed in the faces of king never afraid to burn_

_And I hate and I hate and I hate_

_And I hate disintegration_

_Watching us whither_

_Black winged roses that safely changed their color_

--'Little Earthquakes', _Tori Amos_

**–dawn**

_fin 11/16/2k2 fin ed: 2/28/2k3_

Nine days and seventeen hours later he still felt the sting of sweat in abrasions, now more than ever giving that same crude intensity to the curve of muscle beneath the skin. If he tried hard enough he could still make a kick whistle through the air, and, if only to spite the limitations presented by reality and his own inability, turn the strikes into starlit blurs, ignoring the crimson drops that ran between his knuckles and flew into the dust.

Nine days and seventeen hours later his eyes still burned –and even after he collapsed for the third time in the hour, cheek pressed to the cold stone and forearm raw, he could still see the damnable golden after-image, though the source had long vanished, leaving it devoid of explanation and sweet in decay. 

Nine days and seventeen hours later he pulled himself from the earth again, flaring his ki beneath him and rushing upwards as far as it would take him. The wind rushing past him numbed his skin and drove away exhaustion like rain did blood. It was only as he leveled off to begin another attack that he became aware of the reversal of the fluttering in the tatters of hi gi, and the gravity pulling at heavy limbs; only vaguely did he feel the headlong plummet slow into a gentle descent, and his body being repositioned, pressure under his knees and behind his shoulders. Small children were often carried that way, he thought idly, and smiled sleepily when fabric tickled at his lashes.

"That's about enough, don't you think?"

He had no nose, and of course had little to no sense of smell. He could've sworn, though, and would always swear, that the man had the smell of desert about him, and freedom, untouched by the wear of the city. "Enough?" he said.

The flight ended abruptly. His smile faded into a grimace as rocks found their way beneath him again. The discomfort was lessened slightly as a coat draped itself over his shoulders. "Yes, enough. It's depressing to see you do this to yourself. You and Gohan both, man."

"Gohan." Awareness was trickling back gradually. Kuririn ventured to open his eyes and reached up to rub at them, wincing when grit scraped along the lower lids. "Crap."

The taller man crouched beside him. Even in the retreating starlight Kuririn could see the shadows underneath the dark eyes, and the slump. Yamcha was tired, he realized. They all were. "Yeah. He's being pretty good about it, all things considering, but you can tell it's really chewing him up. Chichi making him study all the time probably isn't helping him any. Is it normal for a ten-year-old to be doing logarithms?" 

Kuririn lowered his hand, fingering a tatter at the knee of his gi. "He's not doing anything stupid, is he?"

"Besides logarithms?" Though flippant, Yamcha avoided his gaze. "He's not starving himself, if that's what you mean. Or chopping at his wrists. He's okay, sort of. You're still trying to power up."

"I am?" He was, he thought glumly, and stopped. The task was more difficult than he expected; lowering his ki made him lightheaded. 

The chill was tempered abruptly and he jerked himself from his thoughts. "Yamcha," he said, "what are you doing?"

"What do you think? Hold still."

He shifted, slightly irritated. "Did it occur to you that I might not want you to give me energy?"

Yamcha's tone was gentle. "Did it occur to you that I might not give a shit? Hold _still_."

"But it's something you'd do for a kid."

"Stop acting like one and maybe I'll start treating you like an adult." Yamcha pressed a hand against the smaller fighter's chest. "I mean it. At this point you don't even have enough ki left to light a twig on fire."

Kuririn caught the intent behind the curt words and reluctantly settled back. The energy leapt forward, tingling at the skin and weaving through his muscles, invasive. "But Gohan… he's an incredible kid, isn't he?" he said slowly. "I wasn't even able to imagine half the stuff he's already gone through in real life. He really came through for us."

"Mm."

"We need to help him, though." Tired, he noticed again, and blinked hard. "Just a kid… need to help him, right…?"

The ki flow finally dwindled. There was a sound of ripping fabric as Yamcha began tearing strips from his gi; when he spoke, his voice was grim. "Better keep that sentiment on the back burner until you get around to straightening out your own problems. I mean, seriously, Kuririn, you're out here morning to night. Anything in particular that you're trying to accomplish? Hold out your hand."

Goku used to leap out of bed at dawn, Kuririn remembered, or sometime before, stretching his arms above his head and chirping out greetings. Good morning, Kuririn, and it was first, as if it mattered more than anything that he say it. Good morning. He obeyed when Yamcha lightly flicked the base of his palm. "How did you find me?"

"I felt your ki keep flaring and dropping in the middle of nowhere, for starters." Yamcha drew the makeshift bandage tighter than necessary. "After it kept me up for the better part of three days I decided to come and see what the hell you were doing. You going to answer my question?"

"I wonder why Gohan didn't come," Kuririn said. Seeing as he couldn't see the sky, paradoxically, he imagined the moon instead (was there even a moon at this point?) and was suddenly grateful he didn't have a tail. It would be inconvenient to turn into an Oozaru, after all, and he might crush Yamcha. "We could've sparred and…"

"Kuririn!" A painful grip on his shoulder jerked him back to reality. He opened his eyes to meet Yamcha's gaze, taken aback by the sudden fury. Yamcha shook him twice. "Just how stupid do you think I am?"

Kuririn stared at him, momentarily unable to respond. Yamcha released him abruptly, setting back hard in the dirt and massaging his temples with his fingertips. "Sorry," he muttered. "Shit. I'm sorry."

Kuririn's hand lifted to rub his shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"No," he said, and with a sudden motion half-turned to slam his fist into the mountain. Cracks shot up the side. "I'm sick of this," he said wearily. "I am fucking sick to death of this. Do you enjoy making me worry about you? Kami. No matter what you think, or try to make yourself think, it wasn't your fault."

Kuririn's smile lacked conviction. "What do you mean?"

Yamcha snorted, bracing himself against the side of the mountain briefly, then sank to his knees again, picking up the remaining piece of cloth. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? Any idiot could figure out what you're doing, and any idiot could tell you that you don't deserve it."

There was something about Him, though, that filtered past the stupidity –that smile, maybe, on Kinto'un, or those wise little sayings out of nowhere, in between bites of lunch and punches in a sparring. Kuririn suppressed the urge to start giggling. "Why should I trust an idiot?"

The muscles in Yamcha's upper body tensed, sending his ki flickering upwards. Kuririn instinctively raised his defense as adrenaline, tired and re-recycled, swept through his body and sugar coated fatigue. "Shut up," Yamcha said softly. "Shut up. You're not the only one suffering, you know."

"I didn't say I was."

Yamcha dragged a sleeve across his face roughly. "What Goku did… he hurt a lot of people. You, me, Gohan, Chichi, Bulma, everyone. We can't help but think… I mean, Goku's gone, Cell's gone, Earth is here, and the rest of us are stuck thinking if we'd only been a little smarter, a little faster, a little stronger we would have made a difference somewhere in between. And you want to know what really chaps my ass? It wouldn't make any difference if we went back or not. We could train our entire lives and the result would be just the same. We're only human, Kuririn. We can't even defend our own planet." He gave a short laugh, and it was bitter. "It's a real bitch, isn't it?"

Pain flared across his knuckles; Kuririn bit his lip as Yamcha returned to tying the second bandage, stealing a look upward at face. Lines clawed at the edges of the mouth and the eyes, lending to an alarmingly haggard appearance. "It's not true," he said, "so stop saying it like we're meaningless. Think of all the times humans have stepped up to defend the Earth. What about the battle with the Saiyajins and the Saibamen? You sacrificed your own life so that we could keep fighting. So I could keep fighting, for all the good it did. Without your help we wouldn't have won."

The movements slowed almost imperceptibly. Yamcha's gaze flitted upward from his task, then focused downward again. "And just what makes you so special?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What makes you exempt from your own pardon? You gave it your all, too."

"Oh. But not as much as I _could_ have, see?"

Yamcha tightened the final knot and, to Kuririn's surprise, sank down beside him, back against the rock face. "Do you even care how much that made you sound like a total moron?"

A sad smile flickered across the monk's face. "And here I was hoping to sound angsty and tragic."

Yamcha blew out a sigh of poorly concealed agitation, but let the matter drop. Kuririn returned his attention to the sky. He was suddenly aware of the mourning doves and the rustle of leaves as starlight faded. "Dawn already?" he muttered. 

Yamcha shrugged. Kuririn rocked his head to the side to study him again. Creases and shadows, and light only seemed to deepen them as darkness tumbled from the mountains; he watched as the solid jaw tightened and re-tightened unconsciously. "You look terrible," he said quietly.

"You should talk, pal."

"You know," he said, "I always thought that if we tried hard enough we could make a difference. I mean it. That's why I trained so hard when I was younger. I thought, okay, with work and determination and stuff I could be at the top of the world. Show everyone a thing or two."

Yamcha turned his head slightly. "Hate to break it to you."

"Yeah, I know." Blood was still blotting onto the fabric. Kuririn touched it gently, thinking. "I guess it was my idealism, thinking I could be the best. When I finally realized that I would never measure up to any of the Z fighters, let alone Goku, of course I was disappointed, you know? I mean, my whole life had been dedicated to fighting, and look where it got me."

"That's supposed to be a rhetorical statement, right?"

Kuririn allowed a wry grin to creep onto his face. "Anyway, for some reason, I didn't give up. I just thought that, well, if Goku and the others could push themselves past their limits, why couldn't I? Actually, I don't even know why I bothered."

"Does kind of make you wonder, doesn't it?" Yamcha kicked a heel out along the ground, sending pebbles clattering off stone. "And don't give Goku too much credit. He's a nice guy, don't get me wrong, but he never really cared all that much."

Kuririn's gaze grew narrow. "Meaning?"

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Act stupid. Suits your face, but not your character."

"I'm not acting stupid," Kuririn said irritably. "Goku cared. I mean, he's dead, you know? You don't just go along and die for people that don't matter to you."

"He joined the Cell games because he wanted a good fight. Saving the Earth was just a bonus. Come on, you know him just as much as I do. Stop kidding yourself."

"Goku's heart is pure."

"And his head is empty. So what?"

"You're a jackass," said Kuririn sourly, turning away.

Yamcha eyebrows drew together. "But seriously," he said, "what kind of a person would abandon his family just because he didn't feel like coming back?"

"He had his reasons."

"And he was obviously bored with the rest of us. He didn't even say goodbye. I'm not saying he's a bad guy or anything, and I know it's not cool to diss a guy when he's not here to defend himself, but that's the size of it." Yamcha snorted, kicking the other leg out in disgust. "Oh, but pardon me, I forgot I was speaking to the loyal best friend. Of course you won't voice your own opinions."

Kuririn's injured hands curled into fists. Phantoms danced in impending daybreak, golden-hued and elusive. The smell of blood and sweat and scorching flesh still clung to the earth, too, and rode on the breeze, though the Restoration had eliminated all physical evidence of loss; even if he closed his eyes to avoid clashes of reality and remembrance he could still hear it, and feel the shiver of ki. Kamehamehas and Dragonballs, he gritted silently, a rare edge of violence gaining the upper hand with pain. Death and Life. "You're right, Yamcha," he said. "I am the loyal best friend. Can't you tell? I'm short, I'm ugly, and I'm weak. The only redeeming quality I have is my loyalty. Goku is who he is. Or, rather, was. I'm not going to change that by complaining, so why bother?"

Yamcha frowned at him, opened his mouth, and hesitated.

"I still see it, Yamcha. I'm not sure if you do too, but it's with me constantly." He hitched up a sleeve as if to wipe his face, then lowered it, absent. "Every single minute of every single day I see them in front of me, I see him. Maybe it's selfish, but just once I wanted him to ask me for my help. Kami knows how many times I've asked for his." He laughed suddenly, though the undertone was sour. "Oh, I guess it would be Dende, now, wouldn't it? That's gonna be a nice old habit to try and break…"

"So, basically, you needed him to need you."

"Something like that. Sounds awful, doesn't it? Man." Kuririn lowered his arm. "It took me a long time to trust anybody coming out of Orinji. A long time. You know him, though. It was like, I had to turn good out of self-defense, you know?"

Yamcha's nod was sage. "I tried to kill him," he said.

Despite himself, Kuririn laughed. "And look how you turned out."

"That compliment could've been phrased better."

"Anyway, he was the one to finally get through to me." Kuririn's smile faded. "Being Goku, though, he never even realized what an important step that was for me. I was just another person he'd met along the way. Come to think of it, I've never heard him call me his best friend."

"You probably shouldn't go there."

"Why not?"

"Because it's total crap," said Yamcha. "Come on. I haven't known him for a whole lot longer than you have. We both watched the guy grow up, and we both know how hard it is for him to express… yeah. His feelings. 'Sides, you're my best friend now. I think I may just have to fight him for you."

Kuririn shrugged a shoulder. "You could just try and buy me off of him."

"I need that money for the new paint job on my aircar."

"Hah, hah."

"Seriously, though, I do need somebody." Yamcha was very straight-faced. "All my other girlfriends've left."

"You're full of it," said Kuririn, and threw a pebble at him when he began to laugh. "Dammit. I hate you."

The conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence. It was several minutes later that Kuririn finally spoke up again, and it was about something else entirely. "It's not over, you know," he said. 

"Mm? What's not?"

"This. The conflict. The adventure. With Goku, I mean." Something skittered to their right; Kuririn flicked his fingers. The lizard scuttled off. "For all the time I've known him, I haven't known things to settle down more than a couple of years. Every time I'd think, 'Oh, this is it, the final war,' another would pop up where the last left off. Can't you sense it? Something else is coming."

Though Yamcha's face was still impassive, a flicker of concern crept into his tone. "Kuririn…"

"I mean it! I know it sounds crazy, but… but still." He took a deep breath, suddenly and inexplicably satisfied. "It's far from over, Yamcha. The next time something comes, they'll be warriors ready for it. Vegeta, Gohan, maybe even Trunks, if he's old enough by then. Earth is still here, and Dende willing, dawn'll still keep coming back. I know I'll eventually give up training, but… for now… I still need something to hold on to. I still need something to believe in. Is any of this making any sense?"

Leaves whispered lazily in the wake of a pause. Yamcha blinked twice. "D'ya like coffee?"

"I…" Kuririn stumbled over his response. "Do I what?"

The older fighter heaved himself to his feet and stretched mightily, unknowingly lifting himself a few inches in the air. "Coffee. You know, like the drink? Bulma got me addicted. Wanna go get some?"

Kuririn stared at him, aghast, then broke into laughter. "Yamcha, sometimes I'm convinced you're nuts…!"

"Well, if you don't want to…" Yamcha's expression suddenly darkened. "But if you're thinking about staying out here you can forget it. I don't care how much you still think you have to prove, I want to get a good night's sleep sometime while I'm still alive. Worrying about you is so not good for my health, and I have to be at my best for girl hunting."

Kuririn found his feet. "You shouldn't have worried," he said quietly. "But thanks."

"Why not? You're the hero's best friend. The only one more likely to do stupid things is the hero's offspring, and Gohan sure ain't that dumb."

The response was sheepish. "With logarithms in his curriculum, I have no doubt. Thanks."

"Yeah. I'm tired. Wow." Yamcha took in a breath, suddenly pensive. "Hey, Kuririn, listen. About… that, you know…"

Kuririn looked up from an examination of a bloodstain on his sleeve. "Beg pardon?"

"If you ever…" Yamcha paused again, then shook his head, weary. "Shit. Forget it."

"You sure?"

'Yeah."

"Okay." Kuririn ran a hand over the top of his head, grimacing. "Aw, why didn't you tell me I had stubble? Geez. I probably look like a nerd."

"You always look like a nerd." The agitation slowly faded; the older fighter crossed his arms and smirked. "And you can't perform your patented Cranium Flare, but. Leave it."

"Leave it?"

"Why not? You've been out of the monastery for a long time, now, and I'm thinking Eighteen might find you a little more attractive with hair."

"Knock it off," he protested, blushing. "You've never seen me with the stuff, have you? It was known to occasionally reach out and attack people on the street."

"So, about that coffee…"

The laughter still hung by the morning if he listened, though, and somehow the chord it struck was both a nerve and something not quite as painful. He nodded slowly, once, and gathered his ki below him to rise into the air. Below him, the sunlight brought out the rose in the stones and the sparkle in the river.

Good morning, Kuririn.

It was a gift, he realized; over time, and, assuming that things would heal, they would learn to accept its cost.

"You okay, man?"

They threw silhouettes over the mountainsides as they passed, and the light at the horizon claimed the rest of the sky. Kuririn didn't respond for a moment; Yamcha's smile was inquisitive. "Kuririn?"

"Yeah," he said at last, and drew a breath. "Just need to give it time."

It was nine days and seventeen hours later, after all, and dawn was not dying yet.

_(fin)_


End file.
